"We went short [on September 16] Aussie dollar
versus the US dollar," Hickmore said. "We've had a short in Euro
versus dollar for some time — it's a really [crowded] trade,
which I hate, but it still feels like the right place to
be."

Foreign-exchange rates are important to bond buyers who invest
globally, as a change in the value of the currency the bond is
issued in can easily overwhelm the performance of the bond
itself.

The Australia trade is largely driven by China, he said, as
he believes Australia is"most at risk from Chinese
growth problems."

China is on everyone's minds, and sometimes it's hard to know
what to watch for there.

Most recently, the country's stock market has been making
headlines, crashing twice this summer after rallying over 150% in
just over a year.

Real rate of Chinese growth

Then there is economic growth. Many investors have grown suspicious
of official statistics and have started looking elsewhere to
get a sense of what is happening on the ground.

"We've been talking about what the real rate of Chinese
growth is for some while," Hickmore said. "It's not
7%. We've been saying 5% to 5.5%, and it looks like it might be
kind of around that level — 5% may be the sensible level of
growth.

"If I'm worried about anything, it's about how the Chinese
authorities come in to try to support that," he told Business
Insider.

"I think they've kind of restricted themselves a little bit maybe
about how they do that after the mess they made of trying to
support the equity markets over the summer," he said. "They're
going to have to think very carefully about how to do that."